What do you look for in holdbacks?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SatanicIntention

It's hard enough to get accepted in the rat community as an up and coming new breeder, even if you have great lines with awesome rats. It's very clique-y(I hate that aspect of it and steer clear of those people).

---

Oh I was just assuming. Your one of the cool serious breeders then right! :D

Haha, nah, I'm one of the "breeds-very-rarely-because-I-don't-have-much-room-in-mah-house" breeders. I also don't breed them very often because i wait so long to see how the adults are doing health-wise and temperment-wise. I usually only breed a female once or twice and then she's retired. I think I waited until both rats were a year old until I placed them together.

We currently have a litter of three almost-weaned babies. One male is a red-eyed dilute(or red eyed white) harley dumbo. The other male is going to be pet only and neutered because he has a retained testicle, but I mentioned him above in my other post. The female is an agouti lightning blaze dalmation harley rex dumbo(good lord that's long). She'll be getting bred back to her father just to make sure the line doesn't carry MC or anything. It's doubtful though since their lines come from OFR(Odd Fellows Rattery) in Oregon.

If you want to see some awesome rats from an awesome breeder, look at Hilloah's site: www.ratzrealm.com She's out of California and her rats are just wonderful, high quality cuties. One of my males is from her and he's about 2lbs of muscley man-rat. Probably why I named him Angelo, after a mobster, hehe.

I've never heard of the harley locus? If thats right... I know next to nothing with rats. SO what is that?

The original harley rat came from a pet store where she was mistaken for a long-haired hamster. She was pregnant at the time, had those babies, and those babies were then bred together to see if it was genetic.

Needless to say, alot of the harleys are VERY inbred. My male, Rom, is around 20+% inbred, so I am trying to outcross as much as possible, while still keeping the line going in the direction I want it to go(Harley, Harley Dwarf, Harley Rex, and marked harley/harley-rex/dwarf, etc). I am only breeding the one female back to Rom to ensure that there aren't problems in the line. It will also let me know if he's the one carrying the blaze/high white/dalmationing, or if the mother is. Rom is just a blue agouti mismarked bareback with a headspot, but lord knows what he carries in his genes(they are Wranglers, if anyone wants to know, LOL). I don't have his pedigree as of yet, since the breeder who bred the litter, went nuts and vanished. Yay...

Edit: If you wanted background info on the Harley gene and it's origin, you can look at www.skyclyde.com

Just want to point out that blazed rats are considered "high white" but hooded are not.